Austrian Kathrin Zettel delighted her home crowd when she won the opening race of the Alpine skiing World Cup with a giant slalom victory on Saturday. Zettel improved from second place after the first run to take her third World Cup win with a combined time of two minutes 22.99 seconds. Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, who clocked the first run's best time, could not match Zettel's flawless performance and had to settle for second place 0.98 second behind. On a good day for Austria, Andrea Fischbacher finished third, 1.48 seconds off the pace, ahead of Italian Denise Karbon who won the discipline's World Cup last season. Swiss teenager Lara Gut, who broke into the limelight last season when she took third place in a downhill in St Moritz, showed her talent again by finishing fifth. World champion Nicole Hosp of Austria paid dearly for an early mistake in the second run, ended a disappointing 28th. Former giant slalom world champion Anja Paerson of Sweden, looking to bounce back after a disappointing season last time, was seventh. The women's World Cup now moves to Levi, Finland, in three weeks for a slalom.
